A playwright who spent 10 months speaking to Bradley Manning’s family and trusted friends has today launched a passionate defence of the Wikileaks whistle blower.

Private Bradley Manning was found guilty of 17 out of 22 counts against him at his military trial in Fort Meade last Tuesday – though he was found not guilty of the most serious charge of “aiding the enemy”.

He could yet face up to 136 years in prison after his sentencing, which is expected to take as long as a few weeks.

Aberdare playwright Tim Price, whose play The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning has been nominated for the UK’s oldest literary award, said the verdict was an “utter travesty”.

He went onto compare Manning’s leaking of the Iraq and Afghan war logs to Wikileaks from Forward Operating Base Hammer in Iraq to the actions of Daniel Ellsberg – the man who released the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War in 1971.

Mr Price, who spent months in the company of those closest to Manning in research for his play and remains close to Manning’s Welsh mother, told WalesOnline: “It’s a politically-driven persecution of a young man. The only crime Bradley has committed is that he cares.

“It was an act of conscience, he didn’t kill anybody or hurt anybody.

“There was the hypocrisy of the American military lying and covering up and he felt that those actions didn’t fully represent the American people as a whole and didn’t stand up to the American constitution and, quite rightly, he blew the whistle.”

Manning was partly educated in Wales, having shown an aptitude for computers as a student at Tasker Milward School in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, before returning to the US to live with his father in 2005.

Mr Price said he represented a contemporary version of Daniel Ellsberg, adding he had been convicted under the Espionage Act despite being a whistle blower, not a spy.

“What Bradley has done is no different to what Daniel Ellsberg did with the Pentagon Papers,” he said.

“It is a contemporary, digital version of that.

“This is about President Obama, his approach to whistle blowing and this administration. He has jailed more whistle blowers than all other presidents combined.

“That’s a really important fact we need to know, is that this administration is avidly pursuing people of conscience that work for the government.

“Also it’s all framed by the war on terror which is a completely absurd idea anyway. This is about them trying to stop people of conscience drawing attention to crimes committed by their government.”

Manning’s time in Wales, Iraq and military prison in Virginia is chronicled by Mr Price during his National Theatre of Wales production which was chosen from more 180 plays to be shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Drama 2013 last month.

He said while researching the play, which will feature at this month’s Edinburgh Festival, everybody he spoke to said Manning was very politically engaged, even as a teenager.

Mr Price added Wales was the perfect setting for him to develop a thoughtful conscience.

“The British education system differs from America – there’s a focus on the ability to think the Americans don’t have,” he said.

“Civic duty is a key part of the British education system so I think ideas of the kind of what it means to be a good citizen is one of many questions that have fired Bradley’s imagination and Wales has an incredible history of radical protests and Bradley would have been exposed to that.

“Wales is a place of progressive ideas and so is the internet.

“Wales’ history and the internet’s current history have in common they are both spaces that ferment radical ideas and I think Bradley found the computer liberating – he could be who he wanted to be online.”

Mr Price said that, save for a pardon, he wouldn’t be surprised if a “large portion” of Manning’s life was spent behind bars.

Because it is a military court, there is no opportunity to appeal and he was barred from revealing his motives for leaking by the court during his trial but will be able to during his sentencing hearing.

Mr Price said: “Once he’s sentenced, that is it. There’s no opportunity for Bradley to get out on good behaviour. His only opportunity is a pardon.

“I can’t imagine that the next two presidents being persuaded of that so it’s a really, really crucial decision Bradley’s facing now.”